The last lottery on Earth

They told them it was a lottery. There was only enough space for specific people, the ones that would be able to rebuild the world. They were to tell no one and they boarded ships that were on the seas for several years. Families would be split up and children were left for dead by their parents, if they didn’t get into the lottery. The part they weren’t told was that there had been several different lotteries, and even the children that got left behind would be able to live as the world slowly died around them. Some went ashore sooner, but they all had a different land they were docked in. Each one had different criteria making them a perfect fit for the group they were in. One family was in charge of each group, they were supposed to help and give guidance for the group to survive and create a cohesive civilization. After the first generation of the groups had passed on, some of the others in the groups no longer wanted one family to control the aspects of the group. Although they didn’t want to leave their responsibility the families left the groups in fear that retaliation could break apart everything they had already planned. These groups became the control groups; there were only six of them, but the goal was to rebuild the world with these groups and create a better civilization. The thing that none of those groups expected was that society was continuing on without them. They were nothing more than experiments, thought up by the ruling families in the world and yet they continued to create their own societies bit by bit for hundreds of years. The families that had started the different colonies had simply left when the people started questioning them. They worked together with the governments and hid the experiments from common knowledge. They helped create technologies for the societies to help them create a structure once they forced the families out. The problem with the experiments spanning several generations is that the families that controlled them got bored of watching them create their own structure without intervention. At some point the experiments became less about a possible utopia and more about what a society can handle before it crumbles. The only experiment that continued on its original course was only because the family that had started it tried to leave too late and were mutinied resulting in their imprisonment and ultimately death within the same society. As only one family was assigned to each experiment there was no one able to take over, the society separated females from males and continued on coming together only for certain occasions which resulted in future generations. One of the experiments was now testing a theory on how long radiation in low quantities will result in disease and death. The Family in charge was the Brandt family, Riley being the head of the family since his father’s death five years prior. As a child he was always interested in the experiments and often asked the other families about them as they all stayed in touch with each other. The experiments could only be passed through the sons as they didn’t want any emotions to come in the way of the results and they worried that with daughters who couldn’t carry the name that would be the case. The females within the families didn’t know about the experiments and neither did the rest of the world. One night while Riley was reporting on the radiation levels his wife had come in to ask him a question and found out what he was doing for work even though he had said he worked for the government she never knew in what capacity. She had stopped and waited until Riley was off the call and when he turned around she was in tears. He moved to hold her in his arms.

“You are killing people. For what? Fun?” She sobbed trying to push him away. Riley had never thought about why he was integrating radiation into his experiment. He held her tighter explaining in his gruff voice. “This is what I was taught to do by my father. I was never given a reason as to why we were doing it. The goal is for them to find a way to survive and evolve. I may not get to see the evolutions, but our future generations will. There already have been some adaptations. They purify the water before watering their crops. They don’t need to drink as much to stay hydrated. I am not killing them, I’m helping them survive.”

“If they are evolving, why did you say they had 35 deaths in the last week?” She managed to push him away and walked out of the office into the kitchen. Looking out the windows into the sky below. The world no longer existed the way they knew. I had mostly died out forcing technologies to be created to continue the sustainability of life, but very few humans actually inhabited the Earth outside of the experiments. Everything was now off the ground and in the atmosphere. Fires still burned in several forests even though the manufactured rain would sit above it for days, then the mudslides and floods would take out the buildings that were trying to be saved from the fires. Eventually, everything had to come off the land otherwise more people were dying than were being brought into the world. The oxygen level was low enough because of the tree loss that even going outside for long periods of time was dangerous without a personal oxygen tank. The Icebergs melted and then reformed as the world was no longer over warming it was simply killing any vegetation with its unstable conditions and human stupidity. They had been off the earth for over a century now and they could see the green ever so slowly returning and covering the buildings and cars that were left behind. Riley put his arms around his wife and comforted her as she looked down on where the experiments were spaced out.

“You have to do something. Help them instead of hurt them. There isn’t a reason for them to be subjected to experiments that they didn’t know they were a part of.”

“Kayla… You were never supposed to know about the experiments. No one is, outside of the males within the same family. I can’t just mess with the data. We are trying to find our way back onto Earth without the worry of everyone dying. The air has become very toxic and the water is very acidic.” He hoped his words would end the conversation. She looked at him angrily as if he was the cause of everything. Eventually her face softened a small amount and she gave him a quick peck on the cheek. She walked away and towards their room. She was average in height and had light brown hair with sparkling eyes that were somehow both green and gold. She was the only thing Riley cared about outside of the experiment. He himself was roughly six feet tall and had blonde hair with brown eyes. He felt like a nobody whenever he was with other people cause he seemed to just blend in. He grabbed something to eat, certain that Kayla would refuse to make him food even though she seemed fine, and went back to his office to work on the experiment. The next week he watched as mutation after mutation sprouted in the offspring of this generation and as many of the older members died at younger ages. He thought that the radiation levels must have increased and sent a request out to get them checked. In the meantime, Kayla, who just found out that she was pregnant, grew more and more curious about the experiment and found out that there were several others including one where at night they would lower the temperatures to below freezing and the days would be sweltering hot. She managed to make it into Riley’s office one day when he wasn’t around. She saw a letter stating the radiation was up by over 300% and that was the definite cause of the mutations in all the children. Attached were several photos of corpses with extra fingers and warts covering their bodies. Disgusted, she moved the radiation dial down to zero, not paying attention to the number it was at before. She ran out of the office and into the bathroom before her husband could come back. When Riley returned home he went to his office where he saw the letter talking of the radiation. He went to turn it down and found it already at zero. He tried to investigate what happened when he was pulled into a call regarding the recent results and how they are affecting his experiment. His death toll was up by over 200% and even with no radiation involved he now had to worry about his population dying out. Although he hated leaving his office without contributing anything to the project he wanted to talk to Kayla about what he should do. When he entered the room it looked as if she was already asleep curled up in the covers and snoring softly. He looked at the clock and it alerted him to the late hour. He changed his clothes and gently crawled under the comforter and soon fell asleep. He woke with a start at the brightness in the room. Something was wrong and he could feel it. He looked over and saw Kayla was gone, but she didn’t work and was usually asleep when he woke up. He searched the entire house looking for her. He went into the bathroom to take a shower and regroup his thoughts. When he got out he saw a note on the counter wrapped in a necklace. It felt like his heart fell into his stomach, he opened the letter.

Since you won’t help them

I will.

The necklace was the heart shaped locket engraved with their wedding date that he had given her for her birthday. Kayla was gone.